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The first full, philosophical introduction to Descartes for many
years – competitors are either out of date or considerably higher
in level Descartes is the most important Western philosopher after
Plato and studied by virtually all philosophy students at some
point Explains and assesses Descartes’ most important ideas,
arguments and texts, particularly his Meditations Concerning First
Philosophy Ideal for anyone coming to Descartes for the first time
Additional features include a chronology, a glossary and annotated
further reading
The first full, philosophical introduction to Descartes for many
years – competitors are either out of date or considerably higher
in level Descartes is the most important Western philosopher after
Plato and studied by virtually all philosophy students at some
point Explains and assesses Descartes’ most important ideas,
arguments and texts, particularly his Meditations Concerning First
Philosophy Ideal for anyone coming to Descartes for the first time
Additional features include a chronology, a glossary and annotated
further reading
Margaret Cavendish (1623 - 1673) was a philosopher, poet,
scientist, novelist, and playwright of the seventeenth century. Her
work is important for a number of reasons. It presents an early and
compelling version of the naturalism that is found in current-day
philosophy; it offers important insights that bear on recent
discussions of the nature and characteristics of intelligence and
the question of whether or not the bodies that surround us are
intelligent or have an intelligent cause; it anticipates some of
the central views and arguments that are more commonly associated
with figures like Thomas Hobbes and David Hume. This is the first
full account of Cavendish's philosophy and covers the whole span of
her work. David Cunning begins with an overview of Cavendish's life
and work before assessing her contribution to a wide range of
philosophical subjects, including her arguments concerning
materialism, experimentation, the existence of God, social and
political philosophy and free will and compatibilism. Setting
Cavendish in both historical and philosophical context, he argues
that like Spinoza she builds on central tenets of Descartes'
philosophy and develops them in a direction that Descartes himself
would avoid. She defends a plenum metaphysics according to which
all individuals are causally interdependent, and according to which
the physical universe is a larger individual that constitutes all
of reality. Cavendish is essential reading for students of
seventeenth-century philosophy, early modern philosophy and
seventeenth-century literature.
Descartes' enormously influential Meditations seeks to prove a
number of theses: that God is a necessary existent; that our minds
are equipped to track truth and avoid error; that the external
world exists and provides us with information to preserve our
embodiment; and that minds are immaterial substances. The work is a
treasure-trove of views and arguments, but there are controversies
about the details of the arguments and about how we are supposed to
unpack the views themselves. This Companion offers a rich
collection of new perspectives on the Meditations, showing how the
work is structured literally as a meditation and how it fits into
Descartes' larger philosophical system. Topics include Descartes'
views on philosophical method, knowledge, skepticism, God, the
nature of mind, free will, and the differences between reflective
and embodied life. The volume will be valuable to those studying
Descartes and early modern philosophy more generally.
Margaret Cavendish (1623 - 1673) was a philosopher, poet,
scientist, novelist, and playwright of the seventeenth century. Her
work is important for a number of reasons. It presents an early and
compelling version of the naturalism that is found in current-day
philosophy; it offers important insights that bear on recent
discussions of the nature and characteristics of intelligence and
the question of whether or not the bodies that surround us are
intelligent or have an intelligent cause; it anticipates some of
the central views and arguments that are more commonly associated
with figures like Thomas Hobbes and David Hume. This is the first
full account of Cavendish's philosophy and covers the whole span of
her work. David Cunning begins with an overview of Cavendish's life
and work before assessing her contribution to a wide range of
philosophical subjects, including her arguments concerning
materialism, experimentation, the existence of God, social and
political philosophy and free will and compatibilism. Setting
Cavendish in both historical and philosophical context, he argues
that like Spinoza she builds on central tenets of Descartes'
philosophy and develops them in a direction that Descartes himself
would avoid. She defends a plenum metaphysics according to which
all individuals are causally interdependent, and according to which
the physical universe is a larger individual that constitutes all
of reality. Cavendish is essential reading for students of
seventeenth-century philosophy, early modern philosophy and
seventeenth-century literature.
Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy has proven to be not
only one of the canonical texts of Western philosophy, but also the
site of a great deal of interpretive activity in scholarship on the
history of early modern philosophy over the last two decades. David
Cunning's monograph proposes a new interpretation, which is that
from beginning to end the reasoning of the Meditations is the
first-person reasoning of a thinker who starts from a confused
non-Cartesian paradigm and moves slowly and awkwardly toward a
grasp of just a few of the central theses of Descartes' system. The
meditator of the Meditations is not a full-blown Cartesian at the
start or middle or even the end of inquiry, and accordingly the
Meditations is riddled with confusions throughout. Cunning argues
that Descartes is trying to capture the kind of reasoning that a
non-Cartesian would have to engage in to make the relevant
epistemic progress, and that the Meditations rhetorically models
that reasoning. He proposes that Descartes is reflecting on what
happens in philosophical inquiry: we are unclear about something,
we roam about using our existing concepts and intuitions, we
abandon or revise some of these, and then eventually we come to see
a result as clear that we did not see as clear before. Thus
Cunning's fundamental insight is that Descartes is a teacher, and
the reader a student. With that reading in mind, a significant
number of the interpretive problems that arise in the Descartes
literature dissolve when we make a distinction between the
Cartesian and non-Cartesian elements of the Meditations, and a
better understanding of surrounding texts is achieved as well. This
important volume will be of great interest to scholars of early
modern philosophy.
The Seventeenth-Century philosopher, scientist, poet, playwright,
and novelist Margaret Cavendish went to battle with the great
thinkers of her time, and arguably got the better of them in many
cases. She took a creative and systematic stand on the major
questions of philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, and
political philosophy. She argued that human beings and all other
members of the created universe are purely material creatures, and
she held that there are many other ways in which creatures are
alike as well: for example, human beings, non-human animals,
spiders, cells, and all other beings exhibit skill, wisdom, and
activity, and so the universe of matter is not the largely dead and
unimpressive region that most of her contemporaries thought it to
be. Creatures instead are sophisticated and display a wide spectrum
of intelligent activity, ranging from the highly conscious
mentality that Descartes posited to be part and parcel of human
thought, to embodied forms of cognition that is more common in
non-human creatures but that guide a significant portion of human
behavior as well. Cavendish then used her fictional work to further
illustrate her views and arguments, and also to craft alternative
fictional worlds in which the climate for women was very different
than on Seventeenth-Century earth - a climate in which women could
be taken seriously in the role of philosopher, writer, scientist,
military general, and other roles. This is the first volume to
provide a cross-section of Cavendish's writings, views and
arguments, along with introductory material. It excerpts the key
portions of all her texts including annotated notes highlighting
the interconnections between them. Including a general introduction
by Cunning, the book will allow students to work toward a
systematic picture of Cavendish's metaphysics, epistemology, and
political philosophy (and including some of her non-philosophical
work as well) and to see her in dialogue with philosophers who are
part of the traditional canon.
The Seventeenth-Century philosopher, scientist, poet, playwright,
and novelist Margaret Cavendish went to battle with the great
thinkers of her time, and arguably got the better of them in many
cases. She took a creative and systematic stand on the major
questions of philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, and
political philosophy. She argued that human beings and all other
members of the created universe are purely material creatures, and
she held that there are many other ways in which creatures are
alike as well: for example, human beings, non-human animals,
spiders, cells, and all other beings exhibit skill, wisdom, and
activity, and so the universe of matter is not the largely dead and
unimpressive region that most of her contemporaries thought it to
be. Creatures instead are sophisticated and display a wide spectrum
of intelligent activity, ranging from the highly conscious
mentality that Descartes posited to be part and parcel of human
thought, to embodied forms of cognition that is more common in
non-human creatures but that guide a significant portion of human
behavior as well. Cavendish then used her fictional work to further
illustrate her views and arguments, and also to craft alternative
fictional worlds in which the climate for women was very different
than on Seventeenth-Century earth - a climate in which women could
be taken seriously in the role of philosopher, writer, scientist,
military general, and other roles. This is the first volume to
provide a cross-section of Cavendish's writings, views and
arguments, along with introductory material. It excerpts the key
portions of all her texts including annotated notes highlighting
the interconnections between them. Including a general introduction
by Cunning, the book will allow students to work toward a
systematic picture of Cavendish's metaphysics, epistemology, and
political philosophy (and including some of her non-philosophical
work as well) and to see her in dialogue with philosophers who are
part of the traditional canon.
Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy has proven to be not
only one of the canonical texts of Western philosophy, but also the
site of a great deal of interpretive activity in scholarship on the
history of early modern philosophy over the last two decades. David
Cunning's monograph proposes a new interpretation, which is that
from beginning to end the reasoning of the Meditations is the
first-person reasoning of a thinker who starts from a confused
non-Cartesian paradigm and moves slowly and awkwardly toward a
grasp of just a few of the central theses of Descartes' system. The
meditator of the Meditations is not a full-blown Cartesian at the
start or middle or even the end of inquiry, and accordingly the
Meditations is riddled with confusions throughout. Cunning argues
that Descartes is trying to capture the kind of reasoning that a
non-Cartesian would have to engage in to make the relevant
epistemic progress, and that the Meditations rhetorically models
that reasoning. He proposes that Descartes is reflecting on what
happens in philosophical inquiry: we are unclear about something,
we roam about using our existing concepts and intuitions, we
abandon or revise some of these, and then eventually we come to see
a result as clear that we did not see as clear before. Thus
Cunning's fundamental insight is that Descartes is a teacher, and
the reader a student. With that reading in mind, a significant
number of the interpretive problems that arise in the Descartes
literature dissolve when we make a distinction between the
Cartesian and non-Cartesian elements of the Meditations, and a
better understanding of surrounding texts is achieved as well. This
important volume will be of great interest to scholars of early
modern philosophy.
"Free will: mental energy that poofs into existence from
scratch?"In pairing key ideas from the history of philosophy with
examples from everyday life and culture, David Cunning produces a
clear, incisive and engaging introduction to philosophy. "Everyday
Examples" explores historical philosophy and the contemporary
theory scene and includes ideas from both the analytic and
continental traditions. This broad sweep of topics provides a
synoptic overview of philosophy as a discipline and philosophizing
as an activity.With examples drawn from everything from "The Matrix
"and "Sesame Street "to sleepwalking, driving, dancing, playing a
sport and observing animals, students are pointed to ways in which
they can be a philosopher outside the classroom in the everyday
world.As well as providing entertaining and relatable examples from
everyday life, this book will be especially useful in the
classroom, it is accessible and discussion-oriented, so that
students can get first-hand practice at actually 'doing'
philosophy. This accessibility does not come at the expense of
rigour but, rather, provides a 'way in' to thinking about the major
issues, figures and moments in the history of philosophy. The
chapters are divided into brief sustainable nuggets so that
students can get a definite handle on each issue and also be the
expert for the day on a given section.There are suggested study
questions at the end of each chapter that bring out the force of
each side of the many different issues.An indispensable tool for
those approaching philosophy for the first time.
Descartes' enormously influential Meditations seeks to prove a
number of theses: that God is a necessary existent; that our minds
are equipped to track truth and avoid error; that the external
world exists and provides us with information to preserve our
embodiment; and that minds are immaterial substances. The work is a
treasure-trove of views and arguments, but there are controversies
about the details of the arguments and about how we are supposed to
unpack the views themselves. This Companion offers a rich
collection of new perspectives on the Meditations, showing how the
work is structured literally as a meditation and how it fits into
Descartes' larger philosophical system. Topics include Descartes'
views on philosophical method, knowledge, skepticism, God, the
nature of mind, free will, and the differences between reflective
and embodied life. The volume will be valuable to those studying
Descartes and early modern philosophy more generally.
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